The Problem of the Category of Case in Modern Eng

Case can be defined in the following way: it is a category of the noun that expresses relations between the thing denoted by the noun and other objects and phenomena and that is manifested by some formal sign in the noun itself. This category is based on the opposition of 2 cases: the Common case (H.Sweet) – the Possessive case (Genitive – preferable because not all means of this case are possessive).

The general means of possession has other modifications. It can denote the subject of a quality, state of action: the child's intelligence (quality), the child's sleep (state), the child's answer (action). Occasionally it can denote the object of an action: Clyde Griffiths' trial and execution. The opposition in form. The Genitive case is a marked member, the nominative is unmarked. The marker of the GC is the 's-sign Various views on the category of case. The number of cases and the recognition of the category as such depends on whether case is treated as a morphological form or as a grammatical mean that can be rendered by various means (by an inflection, preposition and word order). Different theories. 1. The 3-case theory or the substitutional theory. Was prompted by the fact that in Old English there existed one common case system for both nouns and personal pronouns. Some grammarians try to introduce a uniform case system in Modern English. Accordingly there are 3 cases recognized in the noun: Nominative, Objective and Genitive. The GC is inflected by the 's-sign. As to the NC and OC they are identified by substituting a personal pronoun for the noun. E.g.: The boy's playing in the garden. – The noun boy is in the NC because it can be replaced by the personal pronoun he. Look at the boy. – The noun boy is in the OC because it can be replaced by him. This theory was criticized and rejected by many grammarians because you cannot attribute the properties of one part of speech to another. The limited case theory This view of the English noun case recognizes a limited inflexional system of two cases in English, one of them featured, the other – unfeatured H. Sweet, O. Jespersen, А.И. Смирницкий, Л.С. Бархударов.

The limited case theory in its modern presentation is based on the explicit oppositional approach to the recognition of grammatical categories. In the system of the English case the functional mark is defined which differentiates the two case-forms: the possessive Gen as the strong member of the categorial opposition; the common as the weak member of the opposition. 2. The theory of positional cases. It is connected with the old grammatical tradition and we find it in the works of German scholars (Дойчбайн, Несфилд, Брайант). According to that view the case of the noun is determined by its position in the sent by analogy with classical Latin grammar. The English noun will distinguish the following cases of the noun: Nominative, Vocative, Dative, Accusative. They are not inflectional. They exist along with the inflectional genitive. The noun in the function of the position of the subject is in the NC. The noun in the position of a direct address is believed to be in the VC. The noun in the position of an indirect object to a verb is believed to be in the DC. The noun in the position of a direct object is in the AC. The theory was bitterly criticized. The main weakness of it is that it substitutes the functional characteristics of parts of the sent for the morphological characteristics of the part of speech, that is the noun. 3. The theory of prepositional cases (Curmy, also connected with the old school grammar teaching). Acc. to this theory, combinations of nouns and pronouns should be considered as case form: 1. the combination to + noun (to the child) is treated as the DC. 2. the combination of + noun is treated as the GC which exists along with the Inflectional Genitive. 3. the combination by + N is treated as the Instrumental Case. Curmy treats prepositions in these combinations as inflexional prepositions. They are gram elements that are equivalent to case inflexions. Other grammarians treat these combinations as analytical cases. This approach is unconvincing and cannot be accepted for the following reasons: 1. Prep-s are not devoid of their lexical mean and they cannot be treated as gram auxiliaries of an analytical form. 2. The number of prepositional phrases is too numerous to be regarded members of the opposition of the category of case. 3. There are no discontinous morphemes. They cannot be treated as analytical forms.

<== попередня сторінка	\|	наступна сторінка ==>
The NOUN. The category of NUMBER.	\|	Adjective. The Category of degree of comparison.

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